A lot of these dreams are set at California colleges--City College of San Francisco, SF State, the University of California at Santa Cruz, but also Stanford University, where I was never a student but worked for a decade. Stanford stands pretty well for academia in general: not exactly an otherworldly refuge, but at least less worldly--on the surface. I found Stanford reflected the surrounding society's crassness, underneath. I came away dedicated to self-education. To libraries and online data that anyone can access, regardless of class, money, age, race, gender, degrees or all the other filters that universities use to force you to accept their rules: you may learn this, but not that. I couldn't find the library I wanted, the library with guides to the deepest inner work. So I built my own! Build your own, too. For the university system is encrusted with far more pernicious vines than ivy.

ALL-GENIUS CLASS: by Wayan; dreamed 2007/5/2, a dream warning of sabotage that took only a decade to figure out
Our gifted class is on a field trip. Our teacher happily explains we're going to wreck a freeway, tying up traffic for months, to protest crappy gifted programs...
CAUTION: SLOWEST DREAM INTERPRETATION EVER

ART OR PROPAGANDA?: by Wayan; dreamed 2008/2/7, three strange dream-reactions to Philip Pullman's books
I'm in a sleep lab dreaming of a kind of dream that can change reality itself. I study its EEG trace. Can I learn to do it?...
I'm arguing with musicians about what's best--music that serves your narrative scheme or spiritual purpose, or pure great music,...
I'm bored in history. Rather than take notes, I draw sexy furries. And so do the babydykes to my left and right! Wishing'll summon the girls we want...
CAUTION: PHILOSOPHY! OH NO!

AS OTHERS SEE US: by Wayan; 1993/12/3, a socially astute flying dream.
We're orphans learning to fly by night, when others can't see and define us...

AWKWARD ENLIGHTENMENT: by Wayan; 2010/1/13; a dream of spiritual and practical advice
Anxious about a big party, I dream of being crowded. But a cat-centaur in the crowd attains enlightenment...

THE BARRINGTON BUNNY: by Wayan; 1988/8/30, a world-saving alien-abduction dream
Alien robots kidnap me... and make me the mascot for a college football team. But my Channel Changer slowly infuses us all with nerdy trust...

A BEAM OF FLIGHT: by Wayan; 1992/4/19, a dream of love and shellshock.
I'm a dance teacher, I'm King Kong, I'm a shell-shocked elf, I'm a wild bird flying...
CAUTION: GAY-POSITIVE ROLE MODELS, OH NO!

BANANA MOON: by Wayan; painting of dream figures, 1998, acrylic on wood, 36 x 48"
My figure-painting class here in San Francisco has a diverse student body, but not THIS diverse...
CAUTION: NUDITY

CAT WITH A KNIFE: by Wayan, 2000/6/24, an almost-nightmare of a Jungian Shadow transformed by patience
At school, a guy threatens me with a knife. But I sit on him and wait patiently. Slowly, he turns into a giant black cat! I set him free in a garden, where he's calm and alert...

CHIMP FINAL: by Wayan; 1984/5/19, a dream about failure.
I'm in school on a chimp scholarship and it's time for my final exam...

CIDER AND WINE: by Wayan; 1974/10/24, surreal Aspie character study (undream)
As the humans of my writing class meet in this Victorian home I turn off my filters and describe what I really see around me...

THE CLARK RANGE, OR, THE HAND: by Wayan; 1975/12/1, a surreal dream prompting me to go lucid and still failing
High in the Sierra with some geologists, I stick my arm deep in a drillhole and feel something impossible--a living hand! Yet ...

CULT OF BLINDNESS: by Wayan, 1984/2/12, a family-dynamics dream with a predictive twist
Everyone's joining the Cult of Blindness. My mom has. I'm tempted; the only way to get dates in this town. But this fat gatekeeper objects...

THE DOUBT: by Wayan; 2007/2/15, an undream trance-painting
Painting an abstract watercolor, I drifted into trance, and found myself climbing a thorny slope. Had I gone wrong?

THE ERTHEDNI: by Wayan, 1977/1/8, three transformation dreams, the last with advice
1: I'm starving in a lush valley; a cult claims all the food, the water, even the air.
2: I'm drowning in a cage but find a corner with water I can breathe--just barely.
3: I'm a merman with a wise friend who hints I need to leave those who starve & drown me...
CAUTION: DOMESTIC BATTERING (OFFSTAGE)

FACULTY WIFE: by Wayan; 1998/1/6, a sexy but disorienting dream.
I'm a faculty wife bored out of my mind until two students have sex in my yard. I ignore HIM and jump HER...
CAUTION: SEX

FEDERALIST SCHOOL: by Wayan; 2013/8/20; a happy advisory dream
A free university just opened in town. The curriculum evolves by natural selection. Anyone can teach! Should I? Just don't eat the food...

GARGOYLE GO-BETWEEN: by Wayan; 1996/11/22, a Hogwartish dream.
I'm odd kid out in my wizard school till gargoyles raid us, and I puzzle out their tongue, to become...

HALF SHAMAN, HALF STATESMAN: by Wayan; 1986/4/21, a parallel-world dream: Chapter 6 of UNICORN TAG
I get a scholarship to Shaman U. Some of my classmates are Terran, but I still don't fit in, because...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE

HICKOPHOBIA: by Wayan; 1996/5/13; 2-page dream-comix (or plain text version)
Whenever I run out of ballet class to Japanese without asking my classmate Wendy out, I change sex...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE

THE HOMONKEYLUS: by Wayan; 1992/6/15, a looping dream about blinders.
A smiling beauty queen on a float gives birth to a monkey with blinders, then re-absorbs the baby, then...
CAUTION: NUDITY AND ODDITY

INUIT MEDITATION: by Wayan; 1989/11/16, a surreal dream-comedy.
I'm the first tuna to get a scholarship to Stanford. Naturally I sign up for a course in Inuit Meditation...

KIOSK: by Wayan; 1994/5/1, a 4-page dreamcomic on the power of song (or illustrated text version)
I'm a sexy singing beast, the Krelkin, trying to lure the Reading Man out of his Moral Kiosk...
CAUTION: NUDITY, INTERSPECIES FLIRTATION

LAMPREYS: by Wayan; 1974/6/27, a dream of assimilation
Pretty much everyone in my school is a bloodsucking alien, but, come to think of it, so what?
CAUTION: SEX, VAMPIRES, SEX WITH VAMPIRES, BUT NICE VAMPIRES

LBJ'S CAGE: by Lyndon Baines Johnson; May-June 1924, a recurring teenage nightmare about college as prison
I found myself in a cage, with only a bench and piles of old books. A mirror showed I was old and twisted with speckled skin. In horror I said "I must get away"...

MAGIC SCHOOL: by Wayan, 1982/1/26: a waking event and replying dream.
Phyllis Schlafly, killer of the Equal Rights Amendment, provokes a dream of being Captain Kirk trapped in a magic school with no way out but the graduate exam... Can I learn the lesson of the tree?
CAUTION: POLITICAL JOURNALISM BEFORE THE DREAM. OH NO!

MAMA BEAR'S ADVICE: by Wayan; 1985/12/8, a dream on love-tactics.
A bear-girl seduced by her coyote professor gets some advice on revenge from her anthropologist mom...

MILK ADDICTS: by Wayan, 1974/6/2, an early psychic dream.
I'm in what seems to be a village of very conservative Muslims. But they're really alien castaways...

A NEVADAN ASS: by Wayan, 2007/5/17, a dream-poem warning I sabotage myself in art AND love
On a ranch in Nevada, I'm a were-horse into mares--when I'm human. And when I'm a stallion? Why, cowgirls of course! Whoever won't fit...
And... why do I suspect this dream's about that tough art critique I face tomorrow--showing dream-comix to commercial artists?
CAUTION: FURRYPHILIA, REJECTION JUNKIE

THE NOTE: by Wayan; 1976/12/31, a psychic nightmare.
On New Year's Eve, I dream my college no longer welcomes me, and wake to find it's true...

OLD HAT: by Wayan; 1988/1/5, a "normal" (i.e. incoherent) dream.
The Goddess gave birth in my workplace. Her fever-dreams become real around us...
CAUTION: BIRTH SCENE, LIBRARIANS' ORGY

ONE FRUIT REMAINS UNEATEN: by Catshall; November 1983, a journal dotted with dreams
My day life as an artist and explorer of the San Francisco underground scene gets commented on regularly by my dreamlife...
CAUTION: SEX, BONDAGE

OTTERS DON'T FAKE: by Wayan; 1989/10/15, a sex dream that's not about sex at all.
I'm scared to show my dream-paintings to my art class. That night I find an large otter in my bed...
CAUTION: SEX

OUT OF THE IQ CLOSET: by Wayan; 2008/5/7, a dream-outburst on the social minefield the gifted face
I'm silent in class; let our new, inexperienced teacher fumble. At last I'm forced to answer, and reveal I'm ahead of her. She doesn't take it well...
CAUTION: UNCOMFORTABLE SOCIAL DILEMMAS

PERSONAL CHAOS THEORY: by Wayan; 1994/12/4, a spiritual math dream.
My life is a mess, so I take a class on the four flavors of chaos, and find my Strange Attractors are shifting...

PHILOSOPHER: by Wayan; 1992. Nondream digital picture-poem.
I worked at Stanford too long. I got tired of observing the mating displays of the purple-prose patriarch..
CAUTION: NUDE ACADEMIC GROUPIE

THE POWER OF NON-VISUALIZATION: by Wayan; 2018/4/29, a mystical dream whose teaching worked
I'm listening to a film-talk on Non-Visualization. "Don't wish--don't will--don't visualize. Just face what you really want, and then don't push..."
CAUTION: MYSTICAL

PRODIGIES' ODDITIES: by Wayan; 1994/2/2, a confession.
I suspect we child prodigies and geniuses are as unlike the gifted as normal people. So here's a checklist...
CAUTION: BRAIN REQUIRED

QUIT THAT LAB!: by Wayan; 1999/5/2, a deductive nightmare.
I'm working alone in the lab at night, when the lab gear wakes up and tries to kill me...

RAIN OF WOMEN: by Wayan; 1999/6/11, a warning nightmare.
Women rain out of the sky. People shrug "Suicides." I don't believe it--and what if one falls on me?
CAUTION: VIOLENCE

SAMURAI LIBRARIAN: by Wayan; 1982/10/20, a dream that dreamwork is samurai discipline
I wrote my dreams each morning no matter what--even if I was late for work. They thought I was spacy...

SHAKE! 1995; digital Muybridge tribute by Wayan.
I love what dancers look like, seen over time, in strobe photos. Like weird undersea growths...
WARNING: NAKED CATS

THE SHAKEN PROFESSOR: by Wayan; 1996/2/11, a dream explaining amnesia and memory.
A great teacher abruptly blanks out. Memory loss is scary, but in the empty moment, a deeper fear emerged:

SING TO MY ALIEN FRIEND: by Wayan; 2017/3/7, an illustrated poem telling a dream on... alienation?
From a crowd in a gym, I sing to my wolflike friend. But she can't recognize my voice--too convincing a falsetto. I go deeper, but she's tuned me out as femme...

SOUL RESTORED and RED ROBE OF INITIATION: by Wayan; 2016/12/4, twin dreams predicting deep change
MY SOUL RESTORED: To protect me as I grew up, someone swapped part of my soul for a piece of redwood-soul! But now that I'm grown...
RED ROBE OF INITIATION: I just came to play music, but they drag me up to the magic-school portal and drape me in this robe of...
CAUTION: MYSTICISM

A STAGE FRIGHT: by Wayan; 1993/11/17, a revealing automatic writing-trance
I froze in dance class when I followed anyone else's script. Was it fear? A dragon inside said no...

STAY GROUNDED!: by Wayan; 1988/2/27, an unexpectedly grounded dream.
I'm playing poker with a dragon. But we barely dare move: we're both crackling with thousands of volts...

THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME: by Wayan; 550K total, 15 illus., 1989/10/4, an unbelievable dream.
My dog and I are abducted by aliens who turn us into cats. We escape, and turn feral to survive. I'm back in school now, and in therapy... but how we got back, and what happened along the way, even my own shrink won't believe...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUID AND KLEPTOMANIAC BUGS

THIRD EYE: by Wayan; 2009/3/25, three diverse dreamlets on the same theme: enlightenment
Three sisters consecutively flash me. But the middle sister has a third eye in there! Clothed, it's blinded. So is she flirting or just enlightening herself?
Then I'm in the near future. Nearly all cars self-drive now. I'm the last driver using my own muscles and mind. But how long can I hold out?
Then a friend projects all the world's wars on a school chalkboard to prove democracies don't fight each other. So if we want peace...
CAUTION: NUDITY

THROUGH WALLS TO SEX CLASS: by Wayan; 2017/6/22, a therapeutic/advisory dream
A trusted college advisor says "Slip through cracks in the classroom walls!" Yoga to taekwondo to ballet to... a sex workshop! There's no direct route...
CAUTION: ABOUT SEX

TRITONIAN FOXTAUR U.: by Wayan; 2016/9/10, a wish-fulfilling dream set on Neptune's moon Triton (or is it Saturn's Titan?)
I'm an exchange student at the Solar System's best university for the magic arts; my classmates are methane-breathing foxtaurs...

TWO BISHOP APPLICANTS: by Wayan; 1984/11/21, a surreal but mercilessly logical dream.
My mind and my soul both apply for a job in Stanford Cathedral. Their rivalry grows to a shamanic duel...

WHY I LIE: by Wayan, 2016/10/7, a dream on privacy-guilt
Asked to share a bit about myself, I lie. Why? Not only are people like me illegal, we're believed to be impossible...

WILD MAGIC: by Wayan, 2018/1/8, a dream on finding a place
A teacher drafts me into her magic class to shake up those wizard wannabes. My magic's wild, ignoring spells & rules. I don't think I realized how wild...
CAUTION: NUDITY

WOLFWALL: by Wayan; 106K, Jan. 1994. Digital image of daydream/trance
Drew all night in a trance and only learned at dawn what this flirting otter and wolf were trying to tell me...
CAUTION: NUDITY AND SEXUAL THEME

A WORLD TOO WEIRD FOR WORDS: by Wayan, 2011/1/21, a dream about dreaming's view of waking life
I'm in a college class studying a bizarre alternate Earth where anarchist co-ops never evolved and (of all things) money rules all...
CAUTION: DISSES CAPITALISM

THE WRITING CLASS: by Wayan; 1984/3/27, a grumpy dream.
Most writers search for their unique style. Not me--I struggle to convey unique EXPERIENCES...

YOU CHIPHEAD! : by Wayan, 1997/1/31, a sarcastic dream.
Chips are faster than brains these days, so everyone's upgrading--everyone but me...

"YOU'RE INSANE": by Wayan; 2000/5/26, a nightmare warning of parental, professorial and medical misjudgments
DAY: My dad's sick and my mom's nagging me to visit, even though hospitals aren't safe for me (damaged immune system)...
NIGHT: I dream my parents tell me "You're insane. We must take control of your life." I disown my family! If I make it, it'll be utterly on my own..
CAUTION: UGLY FAMILY VALUES

YUPPIE BREAKUP: by Wayan; 1991/5/22, a dream on values--or the lack thereof.
A yuppie idealist discovers her boyfriend's a cheerful opportunist, and they disentangle their lives...
CAUTION: SEX IN REVERSE

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